LAUREL COUNTY, KY - Moments after his wife lay in her bed..with two gunshot wounds...Ernest Chris Chumbley picked up the phone and dialed 911.

“Hello….I just shot my wife,” Chris Chumbley is heard telling the dispatcher in the 911 tapes.

“What happened again?” the dispatcher asks.

“You need to come out here,” Chumbley responds.

“Tell me what happened, sir,” the dispatcher requests.

“Give me police. I’m under arrest,” Chumbley said.

From jail Chumbley says he shot his wife with a .32 handgun because she was terminally ill with breast cancer..and she asked him to “stop her pain.”

“I shot her,” he said from the Laurel County Detention Center. “She died from my shots, but it’s not murder.”

Chumbley said he simply complied with his wife’s request.

“She told me she wanted me to end her pain. All I said,’Jay, all I’ve got is what the doctor gave you. She said 'no, I want you to stop my pain for good,’” said Chumbley.

“We’re still investigating this. It’s in the early stages. And there are other people to interview on this case. So we’re not going to speculate on what the circumstances are,” said Gilbert Acciardo with the Laurel Co. Sheriff’s Office.

Neighbors say the couple had a great marriage that lasted more than 20 years. And one that was very loving between the two. But they say in the last couple of years, the cancer had gotten the best of Virginia Chumbley.

“She was hurting real bad. We could hear her at night like she was gasping for air,” said next door neighbor Stanley Campbell.

Chumbley pleaded not guilty to murder charges in Laurel District Court. He’s in jail on a $200,000 cash bond. He doesn’t blame police for arresting him.

“I just did what she asked. And I would expect no different from her if I was asking her,” said Chumbley.

Police say Chumbley gave them no trouble when they arrived to arrest him after the shooting Wednesday morning.

He is set to undergo a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, Sept. 5th at 11 a.m.

You would see family members slipping doctors money under the table to deal with their "financial burden".

Eh, maybe. I think in each case an exam would have to be performed on the patient in question. What is their condition, what's their mental state, etc. If they are in sound mind and just facing a lot of pain and a terminal illness, then I think it's only respectful to let them choose to die with dignity and as little suffering as possible. No sense extending the inevitable. It's often pointed out that we're more humane to animals than to people--we put them down when there is no more we can do for them, and they can't even speak up and give an opinion about it. If I were in this woman's situation, I'd far prefer to have the option to go peacefully in a controlled environment, and not have my loved ones have to deal with my blood on their hands afterwards. But she didn't have that choice.

I suppose she could have done it herself instead, but it's messy and traumatic either way. Just a sad situation no matter how you look at it. I feel sorry for this man.